Robonauts -Future of Robots in Space

"Robots in Space" has just been released, and for once it's not a movie dealing with invincible silicon overlords and rugged heroes who save the world but have no time to shave.  Instead it's a book dealing with the role of both humans and robots in further space exploration, and how one can't progress without the other.

The suitability of robots for space missions is obvious: they're tough, they're precisely controllable, they don't sissy out and die without air and they can live for years on a battery. All the great big explorations recently - Mars, Enceladus, the Sun itself - have been conducted by our automated assistants while the wimpy humans potter around with their new garden shed in the back garden (aka "the ISS in orbit").  Since the machines can go so far, why do we need to bother at all?  First of all, they're not very smart.  Signals can only move at light speed, so communications with the Rovers (for example) take eight minutes back and forth.  They only program it once a day for safety's sake, so it's less "the ultimate RC car" and more "so carefully it makes chess Grandmasters look like skateboarding teenagers".  By the time computer minds are smart enough to work out what to do by themselves, well, by that point we won't be telling them what to do anymore.  We'll be asking if they could please send us back some data from where they go, and we'll be doing it politely.

The second and more important point, however, is that we HAVE to go. What's the point in space travel if we treat these incredible feats of space exploration as nothing but chores?  "Oh, send a robot up to fix the satellite signal please, American Idol XV: Swimsuit Edition is on soon."  One factor the book addresses is the critical loss of interest in space travel by the latest generation, aka "Them damn kids". Surveys have shown that many 18-25 year olds don't see the point in manned space exploration - the most convincing proof yet presented that many 18-25 years olds need a smack in the back of the head.  One reason they mention is that it's "too far", a terrifying indication that the sheer damn-the-consequences inquisitiveness that drove our species out of the water, down from the trees and from caves to two-hundred meter towers may have finally been crushed under the weight of reality TV and YouTube.  Too far?  That's the entire point!  Dismissing space travel as too much effort only encourages the image of the pasty, out-of-shape kid sloshing around a seat in front of a computer eating crumbs from their keyboard because the fridge is "too far" away.

Their other complaint was that it was too dangerous for the astronauts, whom they presumably think are poor innocent babies unaware of the risks of space flight.  This is the real danger to modern space travel: a claim-culture generation who've been raised to believe that anything with risk is bad and should be avoided.  No matter what the gains, or if the person taking the risk thinks its worth it.  These are people for whom "personal responsibility" is like the Atari 2600 - they've heard of it, a few nutballs keep going on about it, but it's not something they've ever had to deal with.  We live in a world where tag is banned in some schools because it's a game with losers - we've fallen a long way from the Saturn V heroics of men who sat on three-quarters of a million gallons of hyper-explosive liquid fuel to go to the moon, most of the extra thrust only required because their balls were so big.

The idea that space travel could be killed by modern hyper-caution isn't just sad, it's a goddamn travesty.  To have left behind the dark ages of history, to finally live in a world where science and research could lift us to the heavens and then stifle ourselves by deciding that the couch is more comfortable?  That a smaller iPod is worth more than a manned moonbase?  That we'd rather watch an idiot blubbing over a burnout pop singer than images from another planet?

We can only hope this new book explains to a few why men have to go to the stars along with the machines - because you can't make it to space when you insist on being surrounded by cotton wool.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

"Robots in Space" release

Gen Y Space Study

Comments

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[kibernick]

Amen to that! :-)

[Sonic]

This is going too far. www.stopthebots.com

Before it's too late.

[crila]

i am 25 and i think space exploration is the coolest thing ever. also, im pretty sure all of my friends would agree. who the hell did they survey?

ill go explore space right now if they will shoot me up there. i just need some tang and a laser or two.

[19 years old]

MTV can lick my balls. If they were culling random volunteers for a space mission you can bet your ass I'd be flipping the bird to those poor little pussies while my nose slid to the side of my face during launch. If I had to choose between one picture of a beautiful extraterrestrial landscape and not seeing another celebrity ever again, I would rejoice.

[take2]

All our efforts to date for exploring the surface of other planets has been robotic. Our little rovers still chugging away on Mars are great examples of the potential longevity of remote robotic exploration missions. The science has been outstanding at a fraction of the cost of sending humans. At some point, we will be ready to cost effectively send people to other planets. until then, we should continue with developing and enhancing lower cost robots to understand the basic science of other worlds, and then send humans.

[Alex]

I think you may be confusing the aims of many of the younger demographic. Man went to the moon more as a political gesture than as an apotheosis. Many argue that it is the race for the stars that is the real attempt to escape from personal responsibility, and they have a point. The Earth is the primary measure of our personal responsibility as a species. I agree that space travel is important, but chastising people for being milksop pussies is hardly going to get you anywhere, not when the budget for nuclear non-proliferation is woefully inadequate and the Middle East is saturated in small arms fire.

[Dave]

Hmmm ... I'm 47 and absolutely agree with crila and 19yr old above.

[Dave]

Hmmm ... I'm 47 and absolutely agree with crila and 19yr old above.

[knoxvilledaniel]

Robots were meant to explore space, preferably with human partners. Some people contest this, but current electronics came about as a spin - off of the early space race, back when NASA was the " can do " agency, & we still sent astronauts on missions WITHOUT worrying whether or not the space - craft would blow up or fry.

[knoxvilledaniel]

And the " conquest " of outer space is still as popular as it was back in the days of the Apollo program. Give the kids of today SOME credit & props for not being totally immersed up to their eyebrows in MTV / VH1, Xbox, Heavy Metal / Rap, slacking, mediocre achievements & apathy to where they're not curious about anything, for heaven's sake.

[Singe]

Ugh, horrible article. "Them damn kids" have the right idea. For our current technology Mars IS too far to send manned missions to. Robots return much better science at much lower cost with no risk to human life.

As for risk... it has nothing to do with hyper-aversion to risk. It's not that there's a mindset of "any risk should be avoided", it's more like "anything COMPLETELY SUICIDAL should be avoided".

As one of "them damned kids" I don't get this "old-timer" notion that you have to have tinned monkeys flying around up there in order to interest the public in space exploration. I know far more people who get their interest in the cosmos from the stunning vistas sent to us by our big telescopes and robot probes than those who get their interest from that overpriced ISS boondoggle that we don't actually LEARN much from.

Once we're successfully colonizing Antarctica and the Sahara with vast self-sufficient underground metropolises... THEN get back to me on that moonbase idea. In the meantime, go watch your Star Trek.